I Am Louis XIV

Compared with the unfavorable first battle of the British on the sea, Louis XIV's army was unscrupulous on the land of the Netherlands. William III was originally the last chance of the Netherlands, but it was in vain in the internal strife with Prime Minister John de Witt If the Dutch can take the next best thing and ensure that the regime held by the prime minister will not be shaken, at least in wartime, then with only one voice, the Netherlands may be able to organize some forces to seize the power in the trap. With the noose around his neck, he was able to linger on.

But just like the letter in Louis's hand, the Orange Belt Party's hatred for the Prime Minister finally broke out completely after William III's disappearance. It’s a small square. Even though the King of France has declared war on the Netherlands, and his army has invaded the Republic in three ways, the parliamentarians in Amsterdam are concerned about who can become the next speaker and prime minister. This letter is addressed to the mayor of Nijmegen His letter was to ask the mayor to support him in the following elections, after lavishly promising various benefits.

The mayor of Nijmegen knelt in front of Louis. Rather than saying that he had completely succumbed to the French king, it would be better to say that the stupid behavior of those he had given hope to completely destroyed his illusions. Well, before Louis burned the letter, he had already read the letter. He read it word by word, even if there was a little mention in it about armaments or defense, or concern for war That’s okay, but no, even if the letter was sent out on the second day after France declared war on the Netherlands, it’s the same... If you only read this letter, everyone would think that there is no war, and the Netherlands is still the same strong and rich country. Godsend.

"I've already taken many keys like this." Louis said, playing with the heavy silver key that was as long as his arm. The Netherlands deserves to be called the Netherlands. Even if it is a city, the silver keys it gives are worth a lot. It is completely inlaid with huge diamonds and precious stones, but these cannot cover Louis' eyes. He did not come here for mere wealth, or in other words, not just for wealth. The chicken that lays the golden eggs - "I never thought that a key could open people's hearts, especially when the people of this city were my enemies a few hours ago."

This sentence made the mayor of Nijmegen tremble: "Your Majesty..."

Although the people of Paris will loudly praise how kind and good their king is, the people of Lorraine and Alsace, and the people of Flanders will not, the king has always been able to clearly distinguish Enemies and loyalists—as the mayor of Nijmegen read in pamphlets and newspapers, the young king imprisoned the Duke of Lorraine, forced him to sell Lorraine to himself, and killed him on the battlefield. Dead the true heir of Lorraine, whose sorcerer spread the plague in Lorraine, summoned the devil, and he drove the poor people infected with the plague into the fire, or exiled them to places beyond Lorraine and Alsace .

And after he captured Flanders, in Flanders, the king implemented a military control system. As small as a settlement, a clear number of long-term residents must be reported, and even a baby must be registered. Going up, adult males need to serve the king - build countless fortifications, forts, warehouses and roads. The king's army lives in such forts and walks on wide and flat roads. The mighty merchants accompanying the army, they are responsible for exchanging the army confiscated, or the woolen cloth or anything of value paid by the people for taxation, into food, tents, blankets and other supplies.

The situation is like that of a tree that Dutch captains saw when they sailed in the southeast. The sap inside allows it to grow up, and the trees it parasitizes will gradually become weak, but it will flourish and cover the sky.

And Nijmegen, and even the whole of the Netherlands, is about to usher in such a tragic fate.

The King of France, though he proclaims God in his mouth, is not so at all, he is as hypocritical and greedy as any Catholic, and he devours his wife's father and his father for a ridiculous and false reason His younger brother's territory is Flanders, and even a vast Flanders cannot satisfy his greed. Before today, the mayor of Nijmegen would still think that the French king's attempt on the Netherlands would be a dream after all, even if the Netherlands only had an army of 20,000 on land, would other countries just watch like this? Did he go on to annex Holland after annexing Flanders? If Flanders were but a flock of woolen sheep, Holland was a strong dairy cow, from whom, at a small price, white milk could be squeezed in endless streams.

He may be right, but obviously, those countries will not allow another Caesar to appear in Europa, but this does not mean that they will waste their strength and money in vain for this reason. Mayor Heng knows that Denmark and other countries united by the Holy Roman Emperor have already sent troops to the border, but they are just waiting for an opportunity amidst the whining of the Dutch. They don't like the French, but they don't like the Dutch either. Attempts are no different from France.

Louis casually threw the silver key to the Duke of Orleans beside him, "Take it and play with it, brother." He said, while the mayor of Nijmegen could only lower his head further, "Mr. Mayor," he said, "I Will send some officers to help you do what I need you to do, I hope they will not be hindered, or deceived, or even murdered - especially the last, I am a merciful man, but I cherish My people, it's like cherishing my eyes, if someone dares to hurt them..." He smiled: "Anyway, what I look like in your pamphlets, what kind of French king you will see," He bent down and looked into the mayor's eyes, his voice was as calm as ever: "The king's cruelty will not affect his greatness, I think you should know, because this is what you are afraid of, even at the cost of murder your hero."

The mayor of Nijmegen struggled to say something, but in the end he found himself unable to say anything.

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It is not without reason that Louis said this, because some of the officials he sent were injured in Flanders before. Fortunately, they were protected by vigilant soldiers. They escaped with their lives after all. The angry king immediately killed the leader Execution, exile of the whole village, and those idiots who thought they would not be tracked down - they thought their new rulers were also those stupid Spaniards, but why did Louis keep so many spies, didn't he just Does it work at this time? Those people were also confiscated of all their properties and hung up in cages.

Those shriveled corpses in cages were hung beside each city gate for everyone to see, and their deterrent effect was unquestionable, but in the Netherlands, Louis did not want to do this again. He knew very well that this kind of free city was It's like a small country without a king, and the families in the city are the princes who hold the power. The mayor is elected or traded by them. His warning to the mayor is also to those families—— They arranged Louis happily in the pamphlet, in fact, because they had a strange cognition-although they did not want to have a king, they thought they were privileged nobles, but unfortunately, Louis did not Doting on them like William III, to Louis, they are no different from those ignorant craftsmen and small businessmen. If they can't fulfill the king's request, the king will not hesitate to deal with them.

"In other words, that's all they are worth." After the mayor of Nijmegen resigned tremblingly, the king said to his brother. "But those merchants..." the Duke of Orleans thought, "Is it the same as in Lorraine?"

"Let's put it this way," Louis said regretfully, "Although I hope our businessmen can replace them as soon as possible, it will be ten or twenty years later, and with William III around, he Will not give up the foundation established by his grandfather."

"As long as the Dutch are willing to accept him," the Duke of Orleans laughed, his face was softer than that of Louis, but after he laughed, he looked a little cold: "I really didn't know that it was Charles II himself. There is still someone who advises him, but his behavior of detaining William III is a miracle, so that even if we have to hand over Utrecht to William III, he will not be able to re-establish his authority. It's an easy thing..." He said so, and then saw his brother showing a strange look.

"Is that why people can't always see their own nose?" Louis murmured, and then ruthlessly revealed the answer: "Who else could that person be, Philip, he is Henrietta, sister of Charles II , your wife."

Philip looked genuinely taken aback. "Her?"

"She." The king affirmed: "Don't underestimate any woman, brother, even the devil can't guess what they can do."

"I haven't, but," said Philip, remembering that when they left Paris, Henrietta, Duchess of Orléans' stomach had swelled as expected, and that when she encouraged her brother to do the thing of imprisoning a king, their The child was already in her womb, "Damn it." The Duke of Orleans cursed in a low voice: "They all say this child will be a son."

"There is nothing wrong with that," said the King; "I prefer wise men to fools." He got up, took Bontang's hat, and put it on his head. "Come out with me, Philip. "

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Nijmegen is located on the banks of the Waal River, with the Maas River below it. The Waal River is the downstream branch of the Rhine River. From this, Nijmegen is connected with Cologne and the Diocese of Münster, and the Maas River has become the link between Nijmegen and The passage to France, because this time Louis's envoys persuaded the Archbishop of Cologne - he is one of the electors of the Holy Roman Empire. He formed an alliance with France and jointly invaded the Netherlands. Viscount Turenne all the way (that is, the army where the king is), marched downstream along the left bank of the Rhine; Condé led his army from the Rhine valley, and the Duke of Luxembourg marched towards Groningen.

Because of the wizard's help, the king's movement of the other two armies is much faster than relying on horses and pigeons. Speaking of it, the king is more worried than the Dutch resistance army. What happened after the conquest of the Netherlands—except for the sporadic rebellion in the Flanders area and the general obedience and infidelity—is what the Dutch have always expected. Other countries are afraid of France, and Louis knows what those guys are planning. Tomorrow, because he would do the same thing-he directly hit the 120,000 French army, causing too heavy losses, and the possibility of being blackmailed by the Netherlands, which was thus preserved, was even less. It would be better to wait for France to destroy most of the Netherlands before appearing as an envoy of justice. It can not only directly threaten the French who have already consumed a lot of strength, but also force the dying Netherlands to succumb to their feet.

But they certainly didn't expect that the Dutch would be so stupid, so stupid that they pinned all their hopes on illusory external interference, and the internal struggle was still endless. Now the Netherlands doesn't even have a unified voice, let alone resistance? When attacking Nijmegen, the king's army hardly encountered any large-scale resistance. Some scattered resistance came from farmers who were instigated by priests, and some more difficult ones came from families in the city-they had His own fortress, hired soldiers and excellent weapons, even including artillery, Viscount Turenne really didn't understand why they would rather put the artillery in the courtyard than move to the city wall, at least they could stop them for ten minutes...

For Viscount Turenne's rare sarcasm, Louis could only smile helplessly. This is the problem of letting businessmen dominate the country. Businessmen will always put profit first. For profit, they can sell anything. In their eyes They can almost only see the benefits, which makes them invincible in the mall, but they cannot gain a slight advantage on the battlefield. No, it should be said, this is their biggest disadvantage. It will always be difficult for merchants to give up their own interests. An extremely difficult thing - except for those merchants at sea, thinking of what happened to the British navy, Louis shook his head. The Dutch on land even lost the acumen and decisiveness of merchants at sea in the face of crises.

"It's nothing, let them go." The king said to Viscount Turenne. Although the king just wanted to take a relaxing walk by the river in the morning with his brother, there were still many ministers and soldiers following him. For guarding, the former is because if they fail to follow the king, these ministers will think that they have lost the king's favor and feel uneasy.

After the future governor of the three provinces of the Netherlands has been booked, Louis certainly will not let others think that Viscount Turenne has lost his favor. Having dinner together, or walking and hunting together, Viscount Turenne seemed to feel it, and he had always expressed complicated feelings about it, which was much more difficult than letting him attack the country of his uncle and teacher.